Today, after banks process paper checks, the checks are sent to be destroyed to ensure the information on the checks remains private. However, prior to destruction, such private information on the checks may be compromised and misappropriated, by, for example, lost checks, misplaced checks or checks being stolen. There is no current process to ensure that the checks (or other items of a financial institution) are indeed destroyed without any private data from the checks being compromised prior to destruction.